Day 19

I try to light a cigarette but can’t find any of the at least 5 lighters I have with me. The man I already noticed drinking a cortado gets up from the bench he is sitting on and walks over to me, handing me his lighter while making enthusiastic arm gestures and pointing at C., standing in the sun so the solar panels can do their work. I am drinking coffee in Jaca, it is a Sunday so the centre is slowly filling up. “What a great device!” He says, his eyes shining. “I have one as well, but it is big - he stretches his arms out to indicate the size - and it has 4 wheels. Sometimes you have to push it but it works great. I did 11 Caminos with it.” He assumes I am walking a pilgrim trail as well, I don’t tell him otherwise. He shows me a patch on his jacket, the Camino symbol, the shell you see on signs everywhere along the routes. When I was staying at the campsite in Huesca they used similar shells as ashtrays, it felt like a sacrilege, it made me smile. “We have the obligation to enjoy ourselves!” he says, still smiling. “Keep the lighter, bon camino!” He comes back a bit later, asks if I am not in a hurry to continue. “Never” I tell him. I have never in my life said so many times “No tengo prisa”, in al sorts of situations where I was waiting for something, be it information or something to eat or drink, or a bus arriving. He opens a little book, inside are 4 leaved lucky clovers, he takes one out and gives it to me. “It is from the day before yesterday,” he says, “good luck!” And he walks off again, letting me be. 

The walk from Sabiñánigo yesterday wasn’t too complicated, a long stretch of road going slowly up in a valley inbetween two mountain ranges. The vegetation here was different from what I had seen before. Fertile land, a river running through the middle of the valley, neverending wheat fields, many wild flowers. There is a footbridge now, connecting the valley with Sabiñánigo but the villages here were hard to reach in the old days.

Jaca is a proper city, situated higher up, with the Pyrenees functioning as a backdrop. I am aiming for the centre of town, which looks like quite a climb from the lower outskirts but my route leads me to a huge constellation with two open-air elevators and a bridge connecting them. I happily use it but I would also have happily dragged C. up a steep tarmac road after all the gravel trails. The city is busy, I forgot it was a Saturday and it is the hour where people go out again after the siesta to stroll around and have a drink. I walk out again, now along a road going down, passing a peaceful historical site, el fuente los baños y lavadros de Jaca, then steeply up again. I considered sleeping in the valley but I enjoyed the walking too much and there was a nicely located cheap campsite in nature, 2 kilometres out of the city. The closer I get, the quieter it becomes, the landscape opens up, wheat fields again and another mountain where the moon is already visible in the still blue sky. The campsite looks perfect but when I get to the entrañe I see the sign, saying it is closed. The man who stands next to it, as if waiting for me, tells me it has been closed since the pandemic, it was difficult to employ the staff needed to run it so now it is only open for people who rent a semi-permanent spot. Through the trees I see the swimming pool and people enjoying the cool water. “I don’t need anything, I only have a tiny tent,” I tell him but he shakes his head. “Why didn’t you call?” he says. “And all the other campsites around here are full.” “I don’t plan” I tell him. “I just walk.” He offers me something to drink and when I ask for some water he gives me a cold 1,5 litre bottle, more valuable in a way than a place to pitch my tent and have a shower. I linger for a bit, some people leave, some arrive, but nobody offers to take me in, only a little boy who looks at me curiously, then opens the gate and tells me to come in. I wave at him when I walk off, there is plenty of space all around to make a bed for the night. I walk 5 minutes and behind the enormous skeleton of a building under construction, a reverse ruin, never to be completed, there’s a cozy spot with a view of Jaca and the Pyrenees on one side and the moon over the mountain on the other side.